Plan B
by nicnac918
Summary: You'd think a genius, even an evil one, would be able to come up with a better idea than this.


In hindsight this hadn't been the best plan. Actually, it hadn't been a good plan in foresight either, or in any sight really. Lex had just been ignoring that, and fucking nobody could be willfully blind like Lex could. He had somehow not noticed that Clark was an alien for seven years, and even then Kara had had to tell him. Lex was, quite frankly, a master when it came to willful blindness.

Lex should also probably be a little less proud of this skill set of his, but he would take his victories where he could get them.

Resolving himself, he might as well see this thing through at this point, Lex walked through the door. In the next room Clark, or Superman technically, since he was wearing that god-awful outfit, was sitting in a chair, strapped down with blue Kryptonite. Lex took a moment to congratulate himself on at least having the common sense not to use the green stuff.

"What do you want Luthor?" Clark demanded.

"Really Clark, there's no reason to be hostile," Lex told him. Not that he blamed Clark for thinking that there was.

"Clark? What are you talking about? I'm Superman." Clark said cagily.

Lex let out an exasperated sigh. "As fun the spilt personality game is, I want to have a serious conversation with you right now, and I'm not going to call you Superman while we have it."

"But Tess erased your memory!" objected Clark.

First of all, how had Clark even known that had happened? Lex hadn't told anyone, and Tess was dead, so she sure as hell wasn't talking. Maybe she had left a note... But aside from that, what had made Clark think that Tess's attempts to dabble in mad science, which she should have left to the experts, had worked? It wasn't like Lex had been pretending like he didn't have his memories in any way.

Unless Clark had been trying to out willfully blind Lex. Well, Lex certainly wasn't going to let that stand.

"She certainly tried to. But her success would have to assume that making a drug that could reliably erase all of someone's memories is even possible, and that when I was making a new body for myself I didn't have them adjust it to make it immune to most harmful agents, and that Summerholt would develop a memory erasing drug without also making an antidote, and that I didn't start keeping an extremely detailed journal after the first time I lost my memory," Lex pointed out. Not all of these things were false, strictly speaking, but some of them were, and that was all that mattered.

Clark sighed, huffily. It really wasn't a good look on him. "Okay, you remember. So, what do you want Lex?"

"I think we should be friends again."

"What." Clark's voice was completely flat.

"I think we should be friends again," Lex repeated, only to continue to be met by Clark's blank expression. "What part of this is giving you trouble, because I really don't know how to make it any simpler."

Clark blinked a couple of times, and then seemed to shake off his shock. "I think I'm mostly having a problem understanding how you think kidnapping me was going to accomplish this."

"Admittedly this wasn't my best idea ever," conceded Lex.

"And unfortunately not your worst either," Clark snarked and it wasn't like Lex could argue with that.

"But I didn't have any more viable options for getting your attention," Lex concluded.

"You know Lex, there are these new-fangled inventions called email and the telephone, both of which allow you to communicate with someone without actually holding them captive." Had Clark always been this sarcastic? Clearly someone had been a good influence on him in Lex's relative absence.

"Which I would have done, if I hadn't been sure you would have just screened my calls."

"I wouldn't have," Clark objected, but it sounded like he was disagreeing more on the principle of the thing than out of any real belief that Lex was wrong.

"And besides, it's not like this was my first resort," Lex told him. "This was Plan B."

"What was Plan A?" Clark asked skeptically.

"Plan A was when I called _The Planet_ and told them that I was going to grant you an interview," Lex told him. "And then Cat Grant showed up." Insufferable woman.

"Oh that," replied Clark sheepishly. "Well Perry was going to send Lois" – and suddenly Cat Grant was sounding like a delightful treat – "but I convinced him that you and Cat were less likely to kill each other."

"And I am grateful for that, but it is a bit beside the point, since _you_ were the one who was supposed to show up."

Clark shrugged. "Perry wouldn't let me go. He said it was a conflict of interest."

"Why, because you and I used to be friends six years ago or so?" Six years, two months, and three days if their friendship was considered over from when Lex told Clark he was no longer welcome at Lex's house. Not that Lex was counting. "That seems a little overly sensitive."

"No," Clark said, sounding a bit confused at Lex's assumption, "because Superman and Lex Luthor are arch-nemeses."

"Fucking Perry White knows?" Lex exclaimed. "Am I literally the person you know that you didn't think was trustworthy?" Lex could almost forgive Clark for telling Oliver Queen, since Oliver seemed to share Clark's taste in vigilantism and tacky clothing, but _Perry White_?

"That's not fair," Clark objected, "you know I wasn't telling anyone back then. If I had known everyone and their mother was going to wind up knowing – and I do mean that literally since apparently everyone's secret identities was one of the first things that Chloe told Moira when she woke up from her catatonic state last year – then I would have told you too."` Which, Lex supposed, was a hollow sort of comfort, but he still thought he deserved to have been told directly and years ago.

"And anyways," Clark added, "I wasn't the one who told Perry. He had already figured out a lot of it on his own and Mom told him the rest."

"Your mother," Lex repeated doubtfully. Granted, Martha had seemed a bit more open than Jonathan Kent had, but Lex had always got the impression that Clark's parents were the source of his closed-mouthedness.

Clark shrugged. "Yeah, well she and Perry are dating, so he's a part of the family now or something…? Honestly Lex, she just told me she was telling him and I was smart enough not to question it."

That was probably a wise choice. Lex wasn't sure how the sweet farmer's wife that used to fuss over how skinny Lex was had turned into the shadowy leader of Washington, D.C.'s underground, but the fact remained that Martha Kent was pretty much terrifying now.

"Wait," Lex said, a thought occurring to him, "was your mother also the one who told my father about you?" As much as Lex was disgusted by the idea of Martha and his father, it was still preferable to the thought that Clark considered Lionel more trustworthy than Lex.

"Actually that was the AI of my biological father. He possessed your dad and Lionel ended up learning about all the alien stuff that way. Well, unless you believe Tess's claims that Lionel knew all along, but considering this is _Lionel_ we're talking about, I doubt it," Clark said, his voice dripping with disdain.

"I thought you liked my father," Lex said. The two of them had certainly been acting pretty chummy for that last year or two before Lionel died.

"I was just playing nice with him because he knew my secret and my dad was possessing him. It kind of seemed like the thing to do. But I didn't trust him any farther than I could throw him. Or," Clark said, faltering as he realized exactly how far he could throw Lionel, "not any farther than, well, any more than… your dad was a dick."

"No arguments here," Lex responded and Clark smiled a little. "So," asked Lex, "are we friends again?"

"Lex, you _kidnapped_ me."

"And you knocked me unconscious to keep your secret," Lex returned. "As my only friend you really weren't a very good role model, so is it any wonder that I don't really know what I'm doing here?"

"Okay, maybe I believed that when I was fifteen and wanted to feel special, or when I twenty and looking for any excuse to feel guilty, but you can just cut the melodramatic 'you're the only friend I've ever had' crap right now, because I'm not buying it," said Clark, looking like he really wanted to cross his arms, but was unable to do so since they were still cuffed behind his back. It was amazing how much that cut down on Clark's intimidation factor.

"It's not melodramatic crap, it's true," Lex insisted.

"Amanda, Duncan, Jason Teague, Dr. Swan's daughter – Patricia – and Oliver Queen when you were little," Clark recited dryly.

"None of them count," Lex said, which sounded like an excuse, but it was true, dammit. He still didn't really remember anything from before the meteor shower, including playing with Jason, Oliver, and Patricia, Amanda had more of a romantic prospect than a friend, and Duncan… surely their mutual attempts to kill each other had cancelled their former friendship out. Of course Lex and Clark had tried to kill each other on multiple occasions, but they had also saved each other lives, so those probably cancelled each other out too.

It was possible that Lex was bending his requirements to get the results he wanted.

Clark rolled his eyes and looked doubtful, but he didn't argue it. "Even if you haven't had a lot of direct experience, it's not like that's the only way you can learn about appropriate social interactions. There are a lot of movies and books out there that depict people with normal, healthy friendships."

"Are you trying to imply that TV is like real life?" There was naiveté and then there was just being an idiot.

"Obviously it's not completely the same, but it would at least teach you some tricks like… you don't _kidnap_ your friends," said Clark.

"I already apologized for that," Lex said a little tiredly.

"No you haven't!" Clark exclaimed. Lex considered it, and oh, right, he hadn't.

"I'm sorry I kidnapped you."

"Thanks," Clark said, and there was that sarcasm again. "Can I go now?"

"If I let you go can we be friends again?" asked Lex.

"I'm definitely _not_ going to be your friend again if you _don't_ let me go," said Clark. Unsatisfied with that answer, Lex crossed his arms and waited.

One intense staring contest later, Clark made a frustrated noise. "Fine, if you let me go I promise I'll at least think about it." And that was really a better result than Lex could have reasonably hoped for given how this whole thing started.

"Mercy," Lex said, pitching his voice slightly louder. A few seconds later his bodyguard-cum-chauffer-cum-personal assistant (really, she was a very capable woman), came through the door. "Unlock Superman's restraints," he told her. Not that she didn't know that Superman was Clark Kent, but Clark didn't know that she knew, and Lex figured he could wait to drop that bomb on Clark when Clark wasn't already feeling pissy.

"Sure thing Boss," Mercy agreed, quickly and efficiently unlocking him. Clark sat frozen for a second as though he thought the two of them were about to jump him again. Then, between one blink and the next, he was gone, without even saying good-bye. Kind of rude, but perhaps understandable under the circumstances.

"Mercy," Lex said.

"Yeah, Boss?"

"Name a legendary friendship in fiction, preferably one between two males," requested Lex. It had been a fairly good suggestion after all, and making it clear that he had been listening to Clark might help endear Lex to the other man… alien… whatever.

"I've always been fond of Sam and Frodo," Mercy replied.

"I thought you only watched those movies for the battle scenes," Lex commented.

"Yes, but I read the books for the warrior's camaraderie among the Fellowship," Mercy informed him. That was unexpected, if not surprising exactly.

It was also a relatively good idea. Yes, that was definitely Plan C. "Mercy, go find me an evil wizard. Preferably one capable of metallurgy, but if you can't find one of those, then get a goldsmith too."

"Right away, Boss," Mercy said with a salute before running off to do just that.

Now, where was Lex going to find a volcano for sale?

* * *

AN: Story now has a sequel "Plans C Through..." (Story ID: 8444165)


End file.
